Farewell, Sora
by Another Dilettante
Summary: One shot surrounding the idea of Sora not being able to handle constant battle with the Heartless. Warning: contains character death.


Disclaimer: I don't own kingdom hearts or any of the characters.

The song lyrics are from the song The Priest and the Matador by Senses Fail. You don't need to know/read the song for the story to make sense. Feel free to ignore the lyrics if you want, well except for the very last line at the very end. You might need to read that.

This story is originally something I wrote during my early high school days several years ago, I found it and decided to edit and fix it up some and post it. It's been over two years since I played any of the KH games so I apologize if anything is wrong.

**Farewell, Sora**

Sora felt some of his strength disappear with each swing of the keyblade. He feared every swing would be his last, but each time he surprised himself when he mustered enough strength to swing once again.

He glanced around desperately. The heartless continued to swarm him in an eerily quiet, never ending, sea of shadows.

A heartless leaped at him and with a single swipe of the key blade he killed it before it could land on him. The heartless's timing had been perfect; Sora had looked up at the sky just in time to see several bright stars blink out at the exact same time as each other.

A knot formed in the pit of his stomach as he fought back the tears that scorched his eyelids.

"Donald? Goofy?" Sora shouted the names of his friends over the silent hoard attacking him. The silence that followed came as no surprise. He had lost touch with his friends about an hour ago, or maybe it was ten minutes ago. He always had been a bad judge of time.

Sticky sweat poured over his skin and clouded his vision; he couldn't spare a hand to wipe it out of his eyes. His clothes stuck to him, making his movements feel restricted. His muscles protested as he dodged another leaping heartless and twisted around to spear the creature through its center with the keyblade.

Beneath him his legs shook as he struggled to keep himself upright. His legs felt like Jell-O. Not only that but he was seeing dots in front of his eyes, literally.

Then all at once the heartless shadows all melted into the ground and disappeared. Sora turned in circles looking for any signs of them and found none. He finally let his exhaustion overcome him and he dropped onto his knees, letting the key blade clatter onto the stone at his side.

Reaching a hand up to wipe the sweat out of his eyes he discovered that it hadn't been the sweat clouding his vision after all; it had been the tears he thought he had been holding at bay. They now poured freely down his cheeks against his will.

He put both hands on the ground in front of him as support to keep his whole body from giving out on him. He stared down at the cool stone beneath his hands. His arms shuddered and shook beneath his weight.

Ignoring the numbness spreading through his arms, he strained to focus on the noises he heard. It was all from the few people left on the street below him: running footsteps, soft sobs, yells for loved ones. No doubt the heartless had gotten a few people.

Probably more than a few.

His arms gave out on him. A groan escaped him as pain shot through his head as his forehead collided with the stone. He rolled over onto his back and stared up at the night sky, letting the cool stone sooth his hot skin.

Here I lie

I'm staring at

Clouds in the shapes of

Dogs and cats

The stars that weren't hidden behind clouds twinkled back at him. He couldn't tell if it was his imagination or not, but a dim star seemed to disappear in the night sky. The knot in his stomach twisted violently. He swallowed back the bile inching up his throat from his stomach.

After giving himself a moment longer he slowly pulled himself to his feet and rested against the castle wall.

A black shape drew Sora's attention as it emerged from the stone. It was followed by dozens of others. The shadows had come back for him after all.

The first shadow leaped at him before his exhausted body could react in time to defend itself. The shadow landed on his chest and he could feel claw marks dig into his skin. He summoned the keyblade from the ground and knocked the heartless off of him.

He staggered backwards from the motion. The shadows inched closer. Sora retreated backwards until he reached the ledge of the wall he stood on. He had nowhere else to go. How could he possibly make it through another fight?

His right arm hung limply at his side as he fought to keep himself from dropping the keyblade.

The shadows surged forward, ready to attack.

There was no way he could fight them off…But if he didn't they would swarm Hallow Bastion and it too would blink out of existence just like all the other stars had tonight. Maybe he had the strength for one last spell…just one.

He raised the keyblade over his head. His arm threated to collapse under the weight of it. Numbness crept through the hand wrapped around the handle. He barely managed to lift the keyblade over his head. The first half a dozen heartless leapt at him.

"Thundaga!" He roared out the spell. Lightening cracked down from the sky, lighting up the night and striking down the remainder of the heartless.

His arm collapsed beneath the weight of the keyblade. He let go of it as the dots appeared before his eyes again.

Everything seemed so quiet, even the people on the street below had gone completely silent.

His body swayed, then fell backwards. He found himself plummeting through the air, the wind rushed past his ears in a low howl. Suddenly his body made contact with the street below, knocking the air out of him in a painful woosh.

I hear a woman

Start to yell

Oh dear God I

Think he fell

For a few moments everything around him spun. He heard someone let out a pathetic whimper. Who was that? The noise bothered him; it made him feel like crying all over again.

The whimper came again, this time it sounded even more desperate than the last. Then realization washed over him, he was the one whimpering. To his relief the noise ceased.

Sora clamped his eyes shut for a moment, when he opened them again he found a woman standing over him. Her face had no color to it, accentuating the horrified stare she was giving him.

He tried to move, tried to talk to her, but his whole body had gone numb. His voice didn't even want to work; his mouth wouldn't even move to let his voice come out of him.

I'm the arrow

Shot straight to hell

From the bow of William Tell

My body lies

Kissing the ground

Like a cross turned upside down

"It's because of them, isn't it?" The woman finally spoke to him. He stared back at her, not quite understanding her question. Did she really expect him to reply?

Out of his corner a black shape caught his attention. He tried to move his lips again, to warn the woman that the heartless were coming again. Nothing came out.

The woman looked in the direction of the black shape. "Father, help him."

Sora managed to turn his head ever so slightly, enough to see that the black shape wasn't another heartless, just the black robes of a priest.

A priest is rushing

To my side

Begins to read me

My last rites

Father you're too late

My faith is weak

So won't you save your

Half-hearted speech

A man appeared at his other side and gazed down at him with pity. The priest's voice continued to rumble as he read from his Bible. Sora just wanted to run away from them all. He tried to summon the keyblade, his right hand twitched but the keyblade didn't appear. He tried again and still nothing.

Tears prickled against his eyelids again.

The numbness began to dissipate from his body. Now he could feel the pain hammering through every cell in his body. Once again he could feel the dampness from tears on his cheeks. The man spoke quietly to him, Sora paid no attention.

A man bends down and says "Son

We're gonna get through this one

Take my hand and let us pray."

I scream, "Please get the f*ck away."

For the first time Sora took notice of the warm stickiness pooling on his chest. He weakly reached his right hand up to touch it. Looking down he could see the red glint of the blood on his fingers. The knot in his stomach twisted even tighter yet.

Familiar voices drew him out of his rising panic. Yuffie and Leon's familiar faces appeared above him as the others stepped away.

"Donald and Goofy are fine, they are back at the house waiting for you," Leon knelt at Sora's side. Sora could see right through Leon's distorted smile; he was lying. He pushed back the thought that his two friends were lying dead somewhere, or even worse, had turned into heartless.

Yuffie didn't even try to hide her emotions, tears streamed down her face as she sniffled and wiped at her runny nose.

Sora closed his eyes; he didn't want to see them. He didn't want to see the way they looked at him, plus he felt tired, so very tired…

A hand stroked his hair; he couldn't tell who it belonged to.

"I'm so sorry, Sora," Yuffie practically choked on the words.

"Shh," Leon shushed her. "He died a hero's death. The heartless didn't get him; at least he received some mercy in that respect."

Yuffie answered with a loud sob. "He was just a kid. He didn't deserve this."

'I'm not dead yet,' Sora wanted to tell them, but he couldn't move again. His head felt funny, his whole body felt funny. It felt like he was drifting, disconnected from his body. He couldn't even focus on what Leon was saying now.

'Don't leave me,' Sora knew the words wouldn't come out, he tried to remember why he wanted to say that. He couldn't remember, his thoughts were getting all jumbled. Sora let go of his thoughts. He let the drifting feeling take over and lull him to sleep.

The Ambulance is singing

As cops push back the crowd

I start to take my last breath

As blood pours out my mouth

The medics walking my way

I think this could be it

I hear 'em start to state,

"The time of death is half past six."


End file.
